Hockey Holidays Read online

  “If you have to,” I snapped and left the yard through a side gate, striding down Maybury Road, heading to god knows where. He quickly caught up with me; he was six two to my five eleven, and he had the longest legs; he may not have been a professional hockey player like his brother or me, but he was fit.

  And muscled, hard, tempting, and a hundred kinds of lust rolled into one sexy package.

  We walked in silence for a while until the house was a long way behind and we were heading for the park, which promised wide-open spaces.

  “How have you been?” Archie asked as we went through the ornate metal gates before standing aside to let a woman walking six dogs pass us. Archie went to a crouch to fuss over a black lab, and I waited for him to finish.

  There was no way I was answering his question. There would be no talking on this walk if I could help it. Talking led to laughing, which ultimately led to kissing, and way more. That was what had happened last time, and I knew today wouldn’t be any different.

  When we resumed walking, I hoped to hell he’d forgotten what he’d asked, only it seemed that he wasn’t as forgetful as I wanted him to be.

  “How have you been?” he asked again.

  I ignored him until we reached a stand of trees, and we took a small trail through them where it was more private.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I rounded on him.

  He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gazed at me with a thoughtful expression.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, right now we’re just walking,” he finally offered. Something in his soft tone pushed all my buttons, and anger sparked inside me.

  “I don’t want you here.”

  He shrugged. “But I am here, so deal.”

  “And stop texting me,” I snapped angrily. “I don’t need your idiotic comments about finding space or keeping my head up or taking chances. So stop.”

  Archie took his hands out and held them palm up. “I thought we were friends,” he said.

  “Friends don’t add kisses to every text and tell me they care. Friends don’t intrude in my life when I don’t want them there. Hell, real friends leave other friends the hell alone if they ask them to.”

  I’m losing the will to explain this.

  Archie sighed. “What if I don’t want to be just friends?”

  I shoved at him. “I don’t even like you anymore."

  Archie closed in on me in an instant, cradling my face and kissing me so quickly I didn't have a chance to escape. He pushed me back into the trees, into the cool shade, deepening the kiss.

  At any moment I’d be able to move.

  I don’t want to move; I don’t want to stop. Oh God, I want to kiss him so bad.

  I gripped his jacket, not sure whether to push him away or haul him closer, and then he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, and it was game over. All the denial in the world couldn’t have made me push him away, not when he was the only man I’d ever kissed who could make me feel so much.

  My ass hit a trunk, and then he crowded me, as only he could, sucking on my lower lip, biting my neck, rough and hard, and everything I craved. I pushed back, then grabbed his ass, held him close. I heard myself groan; listened as he cursed into the kiss. We were on fire and close to losing control.

  He knew that, and just as it’d always been, it was him who cooled the passion.

  The kisses gentled, and with that came the realization that we were standing in the park, where anyone taking this path could see us. I panicked, my chest tight, but he cradled my face and kissed the tip of my nose.

  “You do like me, at least for this,” he murmured.

  “I don’t.”

  “I love you, Logan.”

  “You can’t. We can’t.”

  “I send kisses on my texts and care about you because I love you, Logan.”

  “I said you can’t.”

  “No one can tell me who to love.”

  He stepped away from me, his hands back in his pockets, and I couldn’t fail to see how turned on he was. Just like me.

  This had never been our problem. The sex had never been the issue.

  It was everything else.

  “Well, I don’t love you. I never did,” I lied.

  I waited for him to demand I tell him the truth, call me on my lying, but he offered a soft, sweet smile and nodded.

  “I know you think that,” he murmured, straightened himself, and smiled again lit his eyes. “Come on, let’s find somewhere for coffee.”

  “No, I want to go home.”

  He looked torn, but he didn’t argue, and silently we walked back the way we’d come, and when we reached the pool, he went indoors. I stayed out with the guys and hoped to hell they didn’t ask any pointed questions.

  “I don’t see ice cream; did you get any ice cream?” Lee asked.

  “You never asked him to, jackass.” Mase shoved Lee off his sunbed.

  My cell chimed with a voicemail from my agent, and I knew I had to make a concerted effort to talk to the man who made me money. I listened to the message, closing my eyes and willing myself not to lose my cool when he detailed a new endorsement for men’s fragrance. Why couldn’t he get me endorsements for my sticks or sports gear? Why was I pigeonholed as the fragrance-guy holding the sexy woman? That was the most left-field thing that I could’ve been forced into. The last advert had involved two women and me, as if I’d know what to do with one, let alone two.

  I didn’t send back a reply and instead watched the three kids rough and tumble, all of them ending up fully clothed in the pool and deciding between them that they earned enough money to order an ice cream delivery.

  Ice cream on Christmas Eve? Just another reason why Christmas in Dallas was messed up.

  Chapter Two

  Christmas morning sucked as well. Mom and Dad called, but it was more of a “Merry Christmas, we-have-breakfast-and-yoga” kind of call. Individually, I spoke to my brothers and sisters, with associated nieces and nephews, but each call was quick. I’m not sure if it was me letting them go so they could enjoy their family time, or them falling for my lies that I had a busy day planned.

  Busy day, my ass.

  I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and considering how miserable I was to be stuck there and feeling sorry for myself. Not to mention wondering how I was going to avoid Archie . We played Dallas on the twenty-seventh, and then we went back home, so I only had to manage a couple of days.

  There was a knock. Archie pushed the door open and then closed it behind him. He was wearing a jacket, that damn beanie covering his hair, ready to go out somewhere I assumed, and he looked so good.

  I sat bolt upright on my bed. “What the hell!” I whispered loudly. “Did anyone see you come in?”

  “Merry Christmas to you too. Lee suggested breakfast out. Mase and Connor jumped at the chance, so it’s just me and you in the house.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can just walk in—”

  “Merry Christmas, Logan,” he repeated, then crossed to stand by the bed, holding out a gift wrapped in silver paper, with curling ribbon and a bow, the whole enchilada.

  I immediately felt Canadian guilt that I didn’t have anything for him, and then it hit me that this was a ridiculous reaction to have.

  He shook it a little, and when I didn’t take it, he sat and placed the gift on the bed next to me.

  “Open it for me,” He softened the words with an added, please.

  Hypnotized by the tone, I huffed and reached for the gift, a rectangular, flat box. Making short work of the decorative ribbon, I slipped the box out of the paper and opened the lid.

  As soon as I saw the frame holding a photo of the two of us from last year, smiling, a selfie taken in a moment of madness, I froze. In that single moment caught on his phone, I was happy. I was myself. I was everything that I held inside me and more. I was in love, or at least I was falling fast. Emotion tightened my throat, and my chest hurt. We’d given everything up the next day